For Sale, The Following Valuable Plantation or Farm Situated in Somerset County, Maryland…

Unrecorded agricultural broadside selling “Peach Blossom,” a fruit farm on the Eastern Shore of Maryland

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Unrecorded 1876 broadside issued by prominent Delaware peach farmer and Samuel Townsend (1812–1881) and his son Richard Townsend (1839–?) offering for sale “Peach Blossom” fruit farm on the Eastern shore of Maryland.

According to the broadside, “[t]he reasons for offering this property for sale is that one of the owners is getting old.” The fruit farm, located in Somerset County on the lower Delmarva Peninsula, was conveniently situated to take advantage of markets in Baltimore via railroad and steamboat. The broadside helpfully adds this additional observation:

The advantage of this location for a Small Fruit Farm is, that fruit ripens from 6 to 10 days earlier than in Delaware or New Jersey, and during that time sells for the highest prices. The freight to Philadelphia, New York, or Boston, is very little higher than from Delaware.

The farm comprised about 357 acres near Kingston Station, with 250 arable acres already under cultivation plus good fences and rich soil:

20 acres of Strawberries, of the Monarch, Wilson and Newman or Early Charleston varieties,
15 acres of Wilson Blackberries,
10 acres of Kittatiny Blackberries,
15 acres of Doolittle Black Cap Raspberries,
10 acres of Brandywine Raspberries,
2 acres of Gooseberries,
1 acre of Prime Asparagus.

Samuel Townsend was a successful business entrepreneur who began fruit farming in the 1860s.  He was especially successful as a peach farmer, maintaining orchards in Delaware and on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Townsend was active in Democratic state politics in Delaware and, though he supported the Union during the Civil War, he helped found Delaware’s White Man’s Party which opposed citizenship and (male) voting rights for African-Americans. The town of Townsend, Delaware is named for him.

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